The Trial of Pirate Bay Continues

Legal counsels for the music and film companies today outlined their compensation claims against the four defendants in the trial of The Pirate Bay.

Peter Danowsky, representing the music companies, said that investigations made following the police action in May 2006 had concluded that "The Pirate Bay was aiding and abetting the extensive infringement of copyright".

"The business that The Pirate Bay was undertaking led to an extensive injury and an extensive loss of sales and marketing ability," Danowsky said. The investigation had found that the defendants were contributing to making available copyrighted works for download, and that was the basis for the compensation claim of the music companies.

Danowsky said the activities of The Pirate Bay affected the music companies' legitimate sales of CDs and online recordings, as well as the potential to develop new online sales.

The music companies are claiming compensation of 2.1 million euros, based on a sample of 23 tracks selected by the prosecutor. But the real loss is greater than that", Danowsky said. The Pirate Bay had created an "unassailable competitor" which led to reduced possibilities for online music sales and new digital music services.

Many recordings had been made available for download before their legitimate release, further compounding the damage to the music companies.

"This is about a purposeful crime on a grand scale with significant income as a result", Danowsky said. He dismissed claims by the defendants that they would be unable to pay the damages, pointing to the fact that The Pirate Bay website was continuing to display adverts after the police raid of May 2006.

TPB defendants are asking for charges to be dropped due to lack of evidence. This is not likely to happen.

Peter Sunde, a co-founder of Pirate Bay and one of four men on trial, responded on a blog post which relate to the recent hacking of the International Federation of Phonographic Industry's web site.

"Our case is going quite well as most of you have noticed. In the light of that it feels very bad that people are hacking web sites which actually puts us in a worse light than we need to be in. I just got back home and read on blogs that ifpi.se was hacked and the rumour on IRC now is that something is going on with ifpi.org and ifpi.com. If anyone involved in the acts going on is reading this - please stop, for our sake. We dont need that kind of support." the blog said.

The hacks will more than likely continue, no matter what the co-founder asks of the community. This trial isn't just about The Pirate Bay, it's about DRM and sharing in general. The Pirate Bay community believes if they win this, nothing will stop the industry from going after the other "big dogs" out there providing illegal ways to obtain software, movies, music and more.